American film and television production and distribution company, Paramount pictures has announced that it is pausing operations in Russia for the time being over the invasion of Ukraine.
This was made known in an internal memo made available to staff on Tuesday by the president and CEO of Paramount pictures Bob Bakish who revealed further steps to pause operations in Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.
He also announced a $1 million donation to support humanitarian relief in Ukraine.
Bakish wrote: “Like many of you, I am closely following the devastating, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. The resulting humanitarian crisis and its ripple effects on the lives of millions of people across Ukraine, Eastern Europe, and in Russia itself, is heartbreaking to witness.”
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“Since the beginning of this crisis, our teams across the world have been working around the clock to determine the best, and most importantly – safest – ways we as a business can show our support for all those impacted. I want to be clear, the safety and security of employees and all those who work with us is, and will always be, our top priority. We continue to offer specialized support services to hundreds of staff, freelance and fixed term employees in Ukraine, Russia, and Poland whose lives are being impacted by this crisis.”
Bakish said that the studio is “taking a series of steps to suspend our operations in Russia, including pausing the supply of Paramount Global content.” The studio had already suspended theatrical release of films in Russia, including “The Lost City” and “Sonic the Hedgehog 2.” Bakish said that publisher Simon & Schuster had suspended sales to accounts in Russia, along with the licensing of translation rights to Russian publishers and that Paramount Consumer Products would pause all new licensing deals in Russia.
“Other activity, including the distribution of linear channels and some content licensing, will take more time to pause due to existing contractual, technical and partner complexities,” Bakish said.
Source: variety.com
